Why so much enthusiasm for F2P basis for MMOs?

[Deleted]

Because people don't like paying money :P If they can get a free game on the backs of the people who will happily buy up everything shiny, why wouldn't they want that?

So true, for once I can exploit and cheer on the people who buy stuff for $, makes me happeh

[Edge-]

Maplestory has been one of the most successful F2P MMOs, to my knowledge, even they have started resorting to P2W. P2W being the easiest way to get the player base to pay up.

You have a single game that's a low budget game, from a company known for their poor cash shop practices (gacha's ahoy), that ended up going from a moderately acceptable cash shop to a bad cash shop, and that somehow is an indication of the entire business model?

You're using a single data point. Not only that, but a poor data point due to the context of it. So again, do you have any evidence to back this up beyond Maple Story and other Korean import MMO's? I'm specifically talking about Western MMO's that either made the transition from P2P to B2P/F2P, or Western MMO's that launched F2P/B2P.

[SodiumChloride]

You have a single game that's a low budget game, from a company known for their poor cash shop practices (gacha's ahoy), that ended up going from a moderately acceptable cash shop to a bad cash shop, and that somehow is an indication of the entire business model?

You're using a single data point. Not only that, but a poor data point due to the context of it. So again, do you have any evidence to back this up beyond Maple Story and other Korean import MMO's? I'm specifically talking about Western MMO's that either made the transition from P2P to B2P/F2P, or Western MMO's that launched F2P/B2P.

Low budget or not, they charge a pretty penny from where I'm around for those Cash Shop items. And if a low budget game needs to resort to P2W ... I can't imagine how a high detail 3D one is going to survive.

How are Western F2P MMOs doing? Don't know. No doubt many went F2P to savage as much of the production cost as they can. The more they had spent, the "harsher" will be the "monetization mechanics", e.g. SWTOR. Content will be on a "when we can afford it" basis, which isn't too bad since it's "free" so players can't really demand anything.

I'm not optimistic about the quality of such games - even excluding the disruptive effects of "monetization mechanics".

[Edge-]

How are Western F2P MMOs doing? Don't know. No doubt many went F2P to savage as much of the production cost as they can. The more they had spent, the "harsher" will be the "monetization mechanics", e.g. SWTOR. Content will be on a "when we can afford it" basis, which isn't too bad since it's "free" so players can't really demand anything.

I'm not optimistic about the quality of such games - even excluding the disruptive effects of "monetization mechanics".

The MMO's that have transitioned are all still around and active. The only ones that aren't are CoH, which closed down because apparently it still wasn't making enough money, and Champions Online, which was a fucking mess at launch and has serious structural issues to this day. The remaining games are still active, seeing content and feature updates, bug fixes and all the normal support you would expect from a MMO. A far cry from what you see coming out of a subscription based holdout like Warhammer, which has a playerbase that fits on one server (running on old server tech) per region, and last I heard had one active guild per faction. Unlike Warhammer, the games that have transitioned are at least still active and seeing new players coming in.

SWTOR is unique in how shitty its business model is, and it's contrary to the trend of F2P MMO's stripping away their restrictions (AoC, EQ2, EQ1, Vanguard, and others have seen the removal of class/race restrictions as well as other restrictions in recent years) and transitioning with few to no restrictions (Tera and most recently Rift). It's not a barometer for the F2P market on the whole. At all.

And to its benefit though, it's actually seeing more content now than it was prior to the subscription. Prior to the subscription, they were barely getting a content patch out every few months, with 5+ months without a patch at one time. Now they've been staying pretty steady on an 8 week content patch cycle. It's not a ton of content with each patch, and it's not the "best content ever", but it's actually doing far better now than it was. It's issues are with its cash shop, not the actual content in the game. Though the cash shop issues haven't seemed to hurt it as it's found its core of subscribers who are happy to pay for the game.

Redit: You assume that the subscription business model is never factored in while content is being designed in a game like WoW? Because it kinda is. They need to ensure that the subscription remains valuable, and that they create longer term grinds and gear resets (new tiers) in order to continue to make the subscription appealing.

As for the quality of F2P games, most of the current batch of F2P games used to be subscription based games. If there was some kind of quality inherent with a subscription, then it should still be there, no?

[SodiumChloride]

The MMO's that have transitioned are all still around and active. The only ones that aren't are CoH, which closed down because apparently it still wasn't making enough money, and Champions Online, which was a fucking mess at launch and has serious structural issues to this day. The remaining games are still active, seeing content and feature updates, bug fixes and all the normal support you would expect from a MMO. A far cry from what you see coming out of a subscription based holdout like Warhammer, which has a playerbase that fits on one server (running on old server tech) per region, and last I heard had one active guild per faction. Unlike Warhammer, the games that have transitioned are at least still active and seeing new players coming in.

SWTOR is unique in how shitty its business model is, and it's contrary to the trend of F2P MMO's stripping away their restrictions (AoC, EQ2, EQ1, Vanguard, and others have seen the removal of class/race restrictions as well as other restrictions in recent years) and transitioning with few to no restrictions (Tera and most recently Rift). It's not a barometer for the F2P market on the whole. At all.

And to its benefit though, it's actually seeing more content now than it was prior to the subscription. Prior to the subscription, they were barely getting a content patch out every few months, with 5+ months without a patch at one time. Now they've been staying pretty steady on an 8 week content patch cycle. It's not a ton of content with each patch, and it's not the "best content ever", but it's actually doing far better now than it was. It's issues are with its cash shop, not the actual content in the game. Though the cash shop issues haven't seemed to hurt it as it's found its core of subscribers who are happy to pay for the game.

Redit: You assume that the subscription business model is never factored in while content is being designed in a game like WoW? Because it kinda is. They need to ensure that the subscription remains valuable, and that they create longer term grinds and gear resets (new tiers) in order to continue to make the subscription appealing.

As for the quality of F2P games, most of the current batch of F2P games used to be subscription based games. If there was some kind of quality inherent with a subscription, then it should still be there, no?

Well, if it works it works.

If all future MMOs go that way, well I'm not going to bitch too much - hey it's "free"; people who have too much money will be subsiding my playing ... but I don't pay anything.

Still "monetization mechanics" don't sit well with me and I would prefer that developers could just concentrate on making the game fun and entertaining (so people stay subscribed) and not have to dream up of "methods" to extract money from their player base. The "traditional" scheme of paying for entertainment above board seem to feel better to me than my entertainment trying to "covertly induce" me into paying. If you get what I mean.

[Ebonheart]

As for the quality of F2P games, most of the current batch of F2P games used to be subscription based games. If there was some kind of quality inherent with a subscription, then it should still be there, no?

This is Rob Pardo's answer to a question that was asked to him a while back.

"Definitely. I'm personally a big fan of game designers being involved in the monetization design, because that's what will ultimately make for the best game. A lot of times I think those become very disconnected in the industry. Someone that's more business-oriented or production-oriented will graft a business model onto a game because that's what they think is going to drive the most revenue, but the game doesn't really support it. That's one of the things you've seen a lot with the subscription-based business model. I personally think subscription-based business models can still work, but you can't over-value your game. There's been some games in the past where they've put the subscription model on it because they thought they could get away with it. The reality is if you're going to do a subscription model you need to deliver an immense amount of premium content over time, because people are going to be looking at as 'If I'm going to be $10 or $15 per month, what am I getting month after month?' If I'm not spending enough hours in your product, it's just not going to make sense as a value proposition.

Free-to-play is a much more friendly business model for a lot of people to try out. People can try these games with no risk, and then only decide to pay for games that they really see the value in or want to spend on. I think that is a really strong model. Free-to-play is almost like a genre of business models, there are so many different ways you can apply it. I think for free-to-play to work really well it has to be deeply integrated with the game design itself. What is it that people are going to buy, and how much are you going to pay for this versus the other thing? One of the biggest issues with free-to-play models these days is the feeling that a lot of games give me: That for me to progress in this game, or to really have a deep game experience, you have to pay. That's where free-to-play gets a bad rap. But that's more the game design than the model."

Should explain to you the mistakes or routes game publishers, developers do when it comes to their games and why they often over rate their own games and content.

Not too long back, a Bio Ware developer himself came out and said that they expected players to take 5 months to reach level cap. Don't know if that was naive or just a cop out, but that is what most current MMOs have done.

That was in answer to your last questing as to why P2P games that started with that model at launch were forced to switch.

[Edge-]

Still "monetization mechanics" don't sit well with me and I would prefer that developers could just concentrate on making the game fun and entertaining (so people stay subscribed) and not have to dream up of "methods" to extract money from their player base. The "traditional" scheme of paying for entertainment above board seem to feel better to me than my entertainment trying to "covertly induce" me into paying. If you get what I mean.

I don't know any games that monetize "mechanics". They'll monetize certain secondary systems (As games like WoW monetize character recustomization and server transfers, whereas others like Rift don't monetize transfers and provide nearly complete character recustomizations for free, but will later charge for race/gender changes), but that's an already existing practice that most gamers seem to be ok with to a certain extent. There are games like Neverwinter that overmonetize the fuck out of their secondary systems, but that's generally more then exception than the rule.

I agree with you on the last bit. I don't like games that try to strongarm me into paying. It doesn't work, because I don't like being strongarmed. If a game gently nudges me in the direction of the cash shop without harassing me though, I'm much more inclined to happily poke around and spend some money. Hell, I've got a ton of Station Cash for SoE's games just sitting around from when I purchased it to support both DCUO and Planetside 2.

[SodiumChloride]

I don't know any games that monetize "mechanics". They'll monetize certain secondary systems (As games like WoW monetize character recustomization and server transfers, whereas others like Rift don't monetize transfers and provide nearly complete character recustomizations for free, but will later charge for race/gender changes), but that's an already existing practice that most gamers seem to be ok with to a certain extent. There are games like Neverwinter that overmonetize the fuck out of their secondary systems, but that's generally more then exception than the rule.

I agree with you on the last bit. I don't like games that try to strongarm me into paying. It doesn't work, because I don't like being strongarmed. If a game gently nudges me in the direction of the cash shop without harassing me though, I'm much more inclined to happily poke around and spend some money. Hell, I've got a ton of Station Cash for SoE's games just sitting around from when I purchased it to support both DCUO and Planetside 2.

It's not monetization of mechanics, but "monetization mechanics". Methods of monetization.

E.g. Selling of XP potions by making levelling painfully slow without it.

The worst of it can be seen in Facebook "social games".

[Edge-]

It's not monetization of mechanics, but "monetization mechanics". Methods of monetization.

E.g. Selling of XP potions by making levelling painfully slow without it.

The worst of it can be seen in Facebook "social games".

Ah, my mistake, I misread that.

Mobile/social "games" (I use quotes because most of them can hardly be called that) are not a barometer to use when looking at bigger budget F2P MMO's. The similarities begin and end with the F2P business model, and the implementations of the business model are radically different as well.

A game like Tera, SWTOR, or soon Rift, doesn't make an overly long, painful leveling process. They still sell experience potions, but the game isn't designed with an overly long leveling curve. This hasn't changed since F2P (though SWTOR did create XP reductions for F2P players for a while. Thankfully, they've removed the restrictions). Heck, even games like Aion continue to add in more leveling quests in order to help mitigate the length/grind to level cap.

Poorly designed games (Perfect World is a prime example of this) do that. It is now, however, a common practice outside of the import Asian (since Perfect World is actually Chinese and not Korean) MMO's.

I won't say that every aspect of the cash shops are sunshine and roses, because they're not. Even the better models have some annoying bits. However that kind of practice hasn't really been implemented in any mid-size Western MMO in the past 5+ years that I can think of.

[Golden]

I'm just saying, in my personal opinion, my enthusiasm for playing the F2P games I've tried is ruined by the cash shop creating so many opportunities to easily and conveniently boost yourself. Even if those boosts are in fairly indirect ways, it still kills my enthusiasm for the game because of the uneven footing for each player. It should either be free or it should have a set price for everyone. I don't like this "The more you pay, the easier things are for you!" situation.

I understand what you are saying from a player's perspective. However, you also need to view the problem from a developer's perspective.

If you leave the door open for gold sellers, this criminal element will provide the player base with P2W options. Then, the developer has to spend money fending off the gold sellers and fighting hacked accounts. The alternative is providing expensive but safe indirect P2W options in the cash shop. Hopefully, fewer people will use these options, but if they do, at least their accounts are safe and the money can go toward adding more content to the game, etc.

Also, there is a group of gamers out there that play really aggressively and obsessively. They drop hundreds of dollars in the cash shop to hit max level in a week. Then, they trash the game on the internet and swarm to the next game. Some cash shops are designed to take advantage of this.

[theWocky]

People prefer F2P now because so many companies churn out F2P games that are a high enough quality for people to be satisfied with that model.

Sub-based games will eventually have their subs eroded as better quality F2P games enter the market. Why have a contract when you can pay for what you need or want?

For example, EvE online - that game grinds my balls paying a sub when some days, all I do is log on and change skills! F2P would be much better. I often sub a month and then cancel again after a few days when I realize what my money bought me.

EvE's saving grace is that it's friggin' awesome, however and I keep trying it every 9 months or so.

[SturdyGamer]

The thing that baffles me is that I know a handful of players who refuse to pay for a monthly subscription and yet spend more than double the cost of a monthly sub on gimmick items each time something new and shiny shows up in various MMO's cash shops.

[jbombard]

The thing that baffles me is that I know a handful of players who refuse to pay for a monthly subscription and yet spend more than double the cost of a monthly sub on gimmick items each time something new and shiny shows up in various MMO's cash shops.

I know right. Almost as silly as those people who pay a sub, and spend more than a months worth on pets and mounts from the online store, and then go on to use customization, transfer, etc... etc... other services worth several months of sub time. Craaaazy.

The thing I like about sub games is they put pressure on the developer to deliver value to the player. The thing is this is where most of them fail, and why they lose subs. But at least it keeps them honest. F2P on the other hand there are a wide variety of models, and you do have some games like SWTOR that charge you for stupid crap like action bars and in many cases 90% of the updates are store items. But the up side to F2P is you don't have to worry about getting your moneys worth, because if you don't think it's worth it you just don't buy it.

[Edge-]

The thing I like about sub games is they put pressure on the developer to deliver value to the player. The thing is this is where most of them fail, and why they lose subs. But at least it keeps them honest. F2P on the other hand there are a wide variety of models, and you do have some games like SWTOR that charge you for stupid crap like action bars and in many cases 90% of the updates are store items. But the up side to F2P is you don't have to worry about getting your moneys worth, because if you don't think it's worth it you just don't buy it.

F2P games need to deliver value as well. If they're not coming out with new, engaging content, then people are going to leave to play other games. It's in their best interest to balance out cash shop updates with content updates to keep players around and playing.

As for SWTOR, while I have no love for the games business model (It's shit), your assessment isn't accurate. It does put a heavy focus on the Cartel Market (more of a focus than any other F2P game I've seen), but it's nowhere near 90%. They've come out with more content since going F2P (even without the expansion) than they have in the time they were subscription only (or close to it). They are coming out with content, they're just matching that with a nearly equal amount of Cartel Market items.

Your last sentence is important though. It puts the power in the hands of the players, "democratizing payment". The company doesn't dictate how much you need to pay to play, they let you choose how much you feel the game is worth. That's kinda an awesome model for consumers.

[Fencers]

Game experience is what ultimately matters.

No. No, it does not.

That could never be a true statement. Only a subjective one.

Gameplay, is the only reason for the existence of a video game. Nothing can be considered higher or equal. It's not possible or they cease to exist.